Halloween (2018) and the Evolution of the Final Girl Part 2

The Trauma of Being a Final Girl

Halloween 2018 shows the evolution of the horror film and the slasher subgenre in another way, more specifically in its presentation of female trauma and critique of masculinity. As already stated, Halloween 2018 is not the only film that addresses trauma of the Final Girl. Wes Craven’s Scream did it through Neve Campbell’s protagonist Sydney Prescott, who confronts the death of her mother and its lingering effects, while trying to make sense of her past. Additionally, Prescott upends several well-established rules of the Final Girl. She has sex and controls the narrative. Even in previous Halloween entries, the issue of trauma and rewriting previous well-established tropes are front and center. Rob Zombie, to his credit, explored this in Halloween II, and it was addressed rather extensively in Halloween H20. However, in the age of #MeToo and the Kavanaugh hearings, specifically the powerful image of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford raising her hand, about to testify before a Senate Judiciary Committee composed of nearly all white men, Laurie’s updated character is especially resonant against the backdrop of current events. The scar on her upper arm from the time Michael slashed her 40 years earlier is a physical manifestation of her trauma, a mark that won’t go away, no matter how many times her family tells her to move on from the past.

As the story unfolds, the viewer learns what happened to Laurie since her first encounter with Michael. She lost custody of her daughter, and, during the present events of the film, has a difficult time maintaining a relationship with her granddaughter. Her scars are both deep and lasting, reverberating for decades. Additionally, people view her as a wingnut, especially since she became a survivalist. While interviewed by two British podcasters who label themselves “investigative journalists,” Laurie questions why they’re willing to humanize Michael, despite the fact he killed her friends, but view her as a “basket case” because she’s been twice divorced. 

The Final Girl and Masculinity

The film makes a broader critique of masculinity. Two of the earliest deaths are that of a father and son. The son tells his father that he wants to continue dance lessons. The father, a hunter, scoffs. When they encounter the crashed transport bus that was carrying Michael, the father, eager to grab a gun and investigate, winds up dead. The son, who initially broke from a traditional masculine role by expressing his interest in dance over hunting, ultimately follows in the father’s footsteps by exploring the scene and arming himself with a rifle. Of course, this does not end well. It’s one of the most brutal deaths in the film and one of the most haunting set pieces.

One character who tries to fill a traditionally masculine role, Ray (Toby Huss), husband of Laurie Strode’s daughter, Karen (Judy Greer), is the biggest comic relief and essentially impotent. When we’re first introduced to him, he is slathering mouse traps with peanut butter, tending to a rodent problem, a task usually assigned to the male. However, he fails to do this well and ends up getting peanut butter all over his pants, his crotch area specifically. Later, when Laurie warns Karen to prepare for Michael’s arrival, Ray shouts that it is his house and his to defend, if need be. However, both Karen and Laurie ignore him and talk over him. Laurie arms him with a gun far smaller than the rifles she possesses and urges Karen to use.

The rest of the men in the film are generally ineffective against Michael’s wrath. There is no Dr. Loomis-type character to save anyone, and unlike the original film, Laurie doesn’t need his assistance to defeat the boogeyman. Michael’s latest doctor, Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer), a former student of Loomis, is morally ambiguous, to say the least, and has some weird fascination with Myers, an urge to understand his power and what it’s like to murder. Unlike Loomis, he doesn’t believe that Myers is pure evil, a force beyond reason. Even the police officers are generally helpless against Myers. Though females are killed in the film, a majority of the kills happen to men. The camera lingers on their brutalized bodies, a reversal from the early tropes identified by Clover.

Halloween’s Path Forward

In the preface to the Princeton Classics Edition of Men, Women, and Chainsaws, Clover commented upon the more recent state of the slasher genre and the Final Girl, essentially speaking out against how the term has been misconstrued, in her view, and what has happened to the genre following the initial publication of her book. Generally, she states that the Final Girl has been turned into a sketch. She writes, “But a sketch is only a sketch. Fill this one out with the dimensions of affect, identification, pacing, and audience, and the picture gets kinkier. Yes, the Final Girl brings down the killer in the final moments, but consider how she spent a good hour of the film up to then being chased and almost caught, hiding, running, falling, rising in pain and fleeing again, seeing her friends mangled and killed by weapon-wielding killers, and so on. ‘Tortured survivor’ might be a better term than ‘hero.’ Or, given the element of last minute luck ‘accidental survivor.’ Or, as I call her, ‘victim hero,’ with an emphasis on ‘victim.’ It’s a great moment when she stops the killer, but to imagine that her, and our, experience of the film reduces to that last-minute reversal is to truly miss the point.”

Clover’s concern regarding the Final Girl and what others have said about her theory is understandable. Yet, Laurie, Karen, and Allyson Strode in Halloween 2018 are not mere sketches. They don’t spend the film being chased or hiding, running, and falling. In this film, the roles are totally reversed. Laurie Strode is the predator and Michael Myers is her prey.